"Home" boasts the surprisingly irresistible combination of Jim Parsons' voice and an animated alien with wide-set eyes, a gap-toothed grin, "nostricles" where ears might be, hands with four fingers, and six squat legs.

Almost 10 years ago, I sat in a bar talking with Wentworth Miller and Dominic Purcell about their roles in the under-appreciated FOX series "Prison Break." They played brothers who through an elaborate plan escape from prison and go on the run.

A day before Ringo Starr's new solo album, "Postcards From Paradise," was slated for release, the former Beatle was at the hub of a frenzy of activity. He bounded from one room to the next in his top-floor suite at a West Hollywood hotel, hustling...